Francis Bacon Quotes

They that reverence to much old times are but a scorn to the new.

In revenge a man is but even with his enemy; for it is a princely thing to pardon, and Solomon saith it is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression.

The less people speak of their greatness, the more we think of it.

I work for posterity, these things requiring ages for their accomplishment.

All bravery stands upon comparisons.

It is the wisdom of the crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour.

God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it.

Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the slaves of their own vaunts.

Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

I don't think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet, and luck.

Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion.

Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.

Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.

... wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity.

None of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch but envy.

Out of monuments, names, words proverbs ...and the like, we do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.

Lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by middle ways and witty reconcilements,--as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man.

If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know not.

All good moral philosophy is ... but the handmaid to religion.

Nothing is terrible except fear itself.

The folly of one man is the fortune of another.

They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations.

All the crimes on earth do not destroy so many of the human race nor alienate so much property as drunkenness.

A man finds himself seven years older the day after his marriage.

Time is the greatest innovator.

Time is the author of authors.

Friends are thieves of time.

If vices were profitable, the virtuous man would be the sinner.

It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives

Cure the disease and kill the patient.

Painting is the pattern of one's own nervous system being projected on canvas.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

Much bending breaks the bow; much unbending the mind.

To be free minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

A good name is like precious ointment ; it filleth all round about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers.

No man's fortune can be an end worthy of his being.

In charity there is no excess.

I would like, in my arbitrary way, to bring one nearer to the actual human being.

A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.

The greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving counsel.

An artist must learn to be nourished by his passions and by his despairs.

Mysteries are due to secrecy.

Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous.

Men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts.

Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when they rise. For the distance is altered, and it is like a deceit of the eye, that when others come on they think themselves go back.

Nothing is to be feared but fear itself. Nothing grievous but to yield to grief.

Great riches have sold more men than they have bought.